María Castellanos and Alberto Valverde + Paco Calvo | Corteva Symposia Series

Within the framework of the congress Present Research, Future Harvest (part of the international programme Corteva Symposia Series, arriving in Spain for the first time on 22 and 23 October 2025 in the city of Córdoba), María Castellanos and Alberto Valverde will present the results of their research on plant communication in Córdoba’s courtyards. This encounter will also feature the insights of Paco Calvo on plant intelligence.

Otras inteligencias: The Project
Other Intelligences. Plant–Human Interspecies Dialogues is an artistic research project that investigates remote communication between plants, with the aim of gaining deeper insight into the language and behaviour of these living beings with whom we share the planet. Other Intelligences is a project by the collective uh513 (María Castellanos and Alberto Valverde) that has already been tested in cities such as Oslo, Brussels, Milan, Mexico City, Gijón, Madrid and Lleida.

FLORA proposes to implement this technology in Córdoba’s courtyards. With the generous collaboration of the local community, a communication network has been created between plants located in different courtyards (Duartas 2, Marroquíes 6, Pastora 2, San Basilio 14 and San Basilio 40), connected to the Internet and equipped with sensors to capture their electrophysiological activity and surrounding environmental changes. For FLORA, a newly designed sensor has been specially developed for this new context, allowing the plants to be connected outdoors (until now the experiments had only taken place indoors; in Córdoba this will be the first outdoor experiment).

Both FLORA’s visitors and anyone online can explore the behaviour and communication of these plants at any time and in real time, as well as access environmental data from around the plant (temperature, light, noise, etc.) through a web platform: uh513.com/flora/

Drawing on plant intelligence and their capacity for learning, Other Intelligences creates a plant neural network which, in addition to revealing new and surprising aspects of vegetal beings, also establishes bridges of communication between botanical and human species. This connects directly with the theme of FLORA 2025, Future. Through an algorithm, specially designed for this research project, remote communication between these plant organisms is enabled, thanks to training and learning responses to different stimuli. Each plant is equipped with tools that allow them to send and receive signals of light, sound and movement. The entire communication process is recorded and later analysed with artificial intelligence tools, which reveal patterns not perceptible to the human eye.